Best Activist (2012)

Randy Parraz

Randy Parraz pulled off what most political pundits in the Valley believed was impossible: leading a successful recall against Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, one of the most powerful — and feared — politicians in Arizona.

A longtime community organizer, Parraz was raised in Sacramento and got a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley and a master's in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. It was the fateful appointment of Pearce as Arizona's Senate president that lit a fire under Parraz and motivated him to launch a recall against the author of SB 1070. As Pearce pushed harder and further to criminalize undocumented immigrants, Parraz and Citizens for a Better Arizona, comprising a bipartisan throng of volunteers, pushed even harder to educate voters in Mesa about the damage Pearce's extreme views were causing Arizona. It led to one of the most talked-about political upsets in the state. In fact, it was the first time in the nation's history that anyone in Pearce's political position had been tossed out of office. Parraz is now trained on making sure that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio does not get re-elected to office in 2012.